Bhopal: In order to make the news items available in the entire country, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is mulling to allow the FM radio stations to broadcast bulletins.

Addressing a press-meet organized by Central Press Club here on Friday, Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said, “The government is pondering over how to broadcast news bulletins with good content on FM radios.”

“There is no danger to the print media in the country despite modern technology including the electronic media because even after watching television channels, viewers prefer to read newspapers,” Varma said.

“For the past few years, the print media in India has been growing at an annual rate of 10 percent. The readers include 10 percent elite class,” the I&B secretary added.

Commenting on the Press Council of India he said, “It is an autonomous body. The Centre is considering toempower the PCI.” Some experts suggested that the government advertisements to the newspapers be stopped if they publish fake news.

As per the government decision, all the news channels in metro cities are required to broadcast digital contents by June 30, 2012. This decision will be effective by December, 2012 in the cities having over 1 lakh populations, while the entire country will get digitalized news items by 2014.

There are 800 television channels in the country while 200 more are in the pipeline informed the I&B Secretary.JPN/Bureau